Yeshiva University High School Protected Child Sexual Abusers, Failed To Report Crimes To Police

Thursday, 13 December 2012 14:53

Rabbi George Finklestein's case has been well-known to those of us who cover child sexual abuse for many years. Finkelstein was the principal of YU's high school in the 1970s and early 1980s.

The reason I didn't do an exposé on him was that I require at least one victim who comes forward using his real name and allows his real name to be published, and corroborating evidence of some kind – usually court documents or other victims who will sign affidavits that they, too, were abused. And that wasn't possible as recently as two years ago in this case.

But that changed, and the Forward has a devastating exposé of Yeshiva University's mishandling of Finkelstein's case and the case of Rabbi Macy Gordon's – who was active about the same time Finkelstein was and who has scholarship named after him even though YU knows he was sodomizing kids in its high school.

Rabbi Noramn Lamm is – correctly it seems – portrayed as a callous man with little concern for the safety of the children in his care. And Lamm's recent statement to the Forward about "homosexual relations" is truly offensive.

“The question of homosexual relations by teachers or principals… was not that clear, and it was not that significant relative to other things that we were dealing with,” Lamm told the Forward. Those other things Lamm was dealing with was YU's precarious financial situation.